Super Simple Time Management and Organizing System

In today’s complicated world it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all of the things we feel we should do. There is so much information available to us and it comes at us 24/7.

What is needed is an easy way to get a firm grip on what’s important to us and make sure we don’t get off track. Spending our time on what we decide will improve our life is critical.

Here is a super easy plan to stay organized. It’s low tech and flexible – but before you change it too much try to remember it’s best to just keep it simple.

Step 1: The Master Lists

You will need two notebooks. Label one of these “master list home” and the other “master list business/work/school”.

Every morning take a few quiet minutes and write down everything you can think of regarding what needs done or remembered in your life. Empty your head of all of the big and little details. Write in both of the master lists.

These master lists are valuable so don’t take them out of the house unless you are sure they are safe!

Step 2: The Weekly List

At the beginning of the week sit down with a blank sheet of paper. At the top list the days of the week.

Referring to your master lists pick 20 tasks to accomplish for the week and divide them up over 5 days. You need 10 tasks for home and 10 for business.

You will have 4 tasks per day – 2 from the home master list and 2 from the business master list. These can be anything big or small as long as you want to get them done this week. Balance little tasks with big tasks so the time frame is realistic.

Post this weekly list near your desk so you will always have a visual reminder of your plans for the week.

Note: If you are trying to do something new that has been hard for you – making this “to do item” very small is a good idea. Very small changes lead to long term success. For more information on the see this article: http://www.hersuccess.com/success-habits/productivity/personal-kaizen-how-to-achieve-your-goals-the-easy-way/

Step 3: The Daily List – Life Change Begins Here

Every morning sit quietly with a blank sheet of paper at your desk and look at the weekly plan you posted. Write down the 2 tasks from home and 2 tasks from business that you want to get done today. Be honest about the amount of time to do these.

Now you have 4 tasks to do today. These are your carefully thought out actions that you decided were important – the actions that will move your life in the direction you want. Get it done and you are headed for success!

Feel free to add any information you need to accomplish these tasks to this daily list. Maybe you need a phone number or address to get the job done. Write it down here.

A good idea is to add an inspirational reminder to yourself or maybe a quote you like.

Fold this daily list into a small size and carry it with you as you get your tasks done. Make notes on the back of this paper whenever you think of something you want to add to your master lists the next morning when you do Step #1 again.

Step 4: General and Special Lists

As you go through life you will have other types of lists, notes and various paper items that need to be kept safe and accessible. Maybe you are working on a specific project at home and you have notes regarding it.

Here is what to do:

All other lists and notes get put in a file folder, labeled and inserted into a portable file case. Create simple categories as dividers to make them easy to find. Don’t get complicated here – remember the easier it is to do the more likely we will do it. So just toss them in a file folder and into the case and be done with it.

Step 5: Use Your Cell Phone Calender for Appointments

Nearly everyone has a cell phone with a calender function. Set it to pop up a reminder the day before appointments and the day of the appointment. These appointments will also be mentioned in your master lists, weekly and daily lists too. But the cell phone is a handy reminder so always use it.

So here is the supplies list for this simple and effective organizing system:

2 notebooks
Notebook paper
File folders with all left or right tabs
A file folder case
A cell phone with calender function

That’s it! In a nutshell – you do the master lists and daily list EVERY day. You do the weekly list WEEKLY. It’s simple. Get started on this easy time management and organizing system today. We are not getting any younger so the sooner you start taking control of your time – the sooner you’ll be living the life you’ve always wanted.

Tags: Organizing, Productivity, Time Management

Personal Kaizen: How to Achieve Your Goals the Easy Way

Have you ever struggled to make lasting change in your life only to fall back into the same old routine?

It can make you feel hopelessly stuck.

What if there was a way to make those changes stick – and it was so easy it was almost effortless? This surprising concept comes from the Japanese philosophy Kaizen. Kaizen means tiny little baby steps towards your goals.

Whenever we make changes in our life our subconscious notices and gets freaked out. It’s afraid that we’ll get hurt doing something new or upsetting. The result for us is that we feel fear. This fear may be very obvious to us or it may be at a level we don’t even notice.

But even if this fear is at the subconscious level it will thwart our new plans for change. To us it simply looks like we screwed up again.

But what actually happens is we revert to our “default mode” which is basically all of the habits we’ve developed over the years. Often these habits are the opposite of what we need in order to see positive change. So our subconscious is happy – everything stays the same again.

Personal Kaizen to the Rescue

Little did we know our subconscious was just “helping us stay safe”. This is a powerful force to overcome – but we can do it because now we have a sneaky tool called Kaizen.

Since we do control our conscious mind – we can make ourselves take small, micro-actions without tripping the built in fear alarm of the subconscious. The reason this works is because small changes don’t alert our subconscious to take action to preserve the status quo.

How small are these micro-actions? I’ll give you an example to get you started.

Let’s say you want to lose weight. You know that you want to keep a food diary but you always seem to forget (default mode). What’s the one thing you can think of doing that is so small your subconscious won’t feel threatened?

Everyday you will record breakfast only. Do just this one thing until it is simply your habit. Breakfast is always recorded in your little notebook. It’s just your way. It’s also a great meal to record first – since it’s so important to eat breakfast if you want to lose weight.

Create a New Comfort Zone

Once our subconscious gets comfortable with these micro-actions the fear alarm is less likely to be activated. And these small actions eventually turn our default mode into a powerful force of good habits that move us faster and faster towards our ideal life.

So in the future as we make bigger changes and our fear alarm is tripped, our default mode will be working in our favor – not against us.

These small micro-actions of improvement grow over time like compound interest in our lives. We make tiny deposits of “change” and then eventually we see big rewards (success).

The great thing about this is that we can do this in all areas of our life that we want to change – with very little effort each day. Start now to think of tiny little actions to improve relationships, health, career and self confidence.

Small Change is Best

But remember – these changes must be extremely small. The smaller the better! This is supposed to be fun – not work. Our new motto is “if there is pain – there is no gain”. Never stress yourself again over change. It’s a process and you’re on your way now.

With Kaizen micro-actions we can “trick” our brain into doing what we know is best for us – exactly what we want. And best of all – it doesn’t require us to do much all at once – so it’s simple to get started. Try the Personal Kaizen method for a fun and easy way to success.

Tags: Personal Kaizen, Productivity

How to Turn Your Dreams into Reality

If you are trying to increase productivity in your life – chances are you are also trying to turn your dreams into reality.

What separates people that are living the life they have always wanted from those who remain dreamers only?

In a word: ACTION!

You must take action in your life if you want to achieve your dreams. You must do something!

What should you do first? What bothers you the most about your life? How will you change this one thing? What would be the very first action you would need to take?

You must do this thing first.

This will set the momentum. As you see success in this one small thing you will build your confidence.

With more confidence in yourself you will be able to take action faster and more efficiently.

Success = Confidence

Confidence = Success

You want to get on this path as soon as possible so start out with a small action that you know you can do quickly.

You will feel great about yourself and be eager to pick the next action. Keep doing this and you will see amazing changes in your life.

Be a doer, take action – dreams are great – but all dreams require productive action to bring them into reality.

Tags: Productivity

5 Ways to Be More Productive

Be more productive by following these 5 steps everyday. You will find that by taking these small actions on a consistent basis your life will change in big ways.

1) Manage your energy by drinking more water, take a short walk in nature everyday, breathe deeply and get at least 8 hours of sleep each night.

2) Focus on one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is a recipe for burnout. Focused energy is like a powerful laser beam – the job gets done and it gets done well.

3) Declutter your mind by making lists of things to do using an organized system. Declutter your environment by regularly getting rid of anything you are not using anymore. Keep everything orderly in mind and matter.

4) Set firm limits for your time online. How much time will you allow each day for email, news websites, social websites and other time stealing monsters? This is a big issue for productivity and you must confront it.

5) Decide each day what 5 things you will accomplish that day. Limit yourself to just 5 main things each day and make sure that at least one of those is something that will move you closer to your ideal life. At the end of a year you will have done 365 things to reach your desires!